I often hear people say the words, “God told me....” Some people say this all the time, about all sorts of things. A former pastor of mine once complained about how flippantly some people use these words. He had recently interviewed three applicants for a staff position, and all three said God had told them they would get the job. A man once came to Charles Spurgeon, the great English preacher, and said to him: “God told me I am to preach in your church this Sunday.” Spurgeon’s response was: “It’s strange He didn’t tell me that,” (and, as you might expect, the man did not preach in Spurgeon’s church).
On the other hand, many people struggle to have any sense of God’s leading. A number of years ago I read about a woman who was living in a Christian community “seeking God’s will for her life.” This was the whole reason she was there; seeking God’s will for her life was the main thing she was engaged in. It was, at least for awhile, her vocation. For many, knowing God’s will is full of mystery; it is the sort of thing that can only be known by going to live in a Christian community, by giving all our time and energy to the pursuit of God’s plan for our lives.
It’s important that we know how to discern God’s will. We pray in the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” When we pray in this way, we are expressing the concern that God’s will be done in our lives. Confessing that Jesus is Lord implies that we are willing to submit to Him. So, if the Lordship of Jesus Christ means anything at all, it is imperative that we have some knowledge of how to know God’s will. And since most of us don’t have the luxury of going to live in a Christian community, we need to know how to discern God’s will in the midst of our day-to-day lives.
The main thing I want to stress is this: God, when He leads us, deals with us as creatures who are able to understand and respond to His instructions. He doesn’t treat us like robots, sending a new signal every time He wants us to do something. He has given us the gift of understanding, and He leads us in ways that are consistent with this.
It’s important to understand that most of God’s will for our lives is revealed clearly in Scripture. Most of God’s will has to do with what He wants us to be, rather than what He wants us to do. God’s concern is that we be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. The book of Proverbs is about this kind of guidance. Eugene Peterson, in The Message, translates the beginning of Proverbs in this way: “These are the wise sayings of Solomon, David’s son, Israel’s king -- Written down so we’ll know how to live well and right, to understand what life means and where it’s going; A manual for living, for learning what’s right and just and fair; To teach the inexperienced the ropes and give our young people a grasp on reality. There’s something here also for seasoned men and women, still a thing or two for the experienced to learn -- Fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate, the rhymes and reasons of wise men and women” (The Message: The Wisdom Books, p. 283). The whole focus of the book of Proverbs is wisdom; but wisdom in the Old Testament is not primarily an intellectual thing (as it was with the Greeks; in Greek thinking, an interest in wisdom led to philosophy); in the Old Testament, wisdom has to do with how we order our lives in this world in obedience to God’s commands. It has to do with living in the fear of God and under His lordship. In the introduction to Proverbs, Peterson says this: “Wisdom has to do with becoming skillful in honoring our parents and raising our children, handling our money and conducting our sexual lives, going to work and exercising leadership, using words well and treating friends kindly, eating and drinking healthily, cultivating emotions within ourselves and attitudes toward others that make for peace. Threaded through all these items is the insistence that the way we think of and respond to God is the most practical thing we do. In matters of everyday practicality, nothing, absolutely nothing, takes precedence over God” (p. 282). Wisdom is living according to God’s revealed will. So, to learn God’s will for our lives, we don’t need to go live in a monastery or a Christian community; we need to prayerfully read and study God’s word and apply it to our lives.
But, having said that, there are still those times when God’s Word doesn’t give us any clear direction. Reading the Bible is not going to tell us which vocation to choose, or which home to buy. It won’t tell us which major to choose in college, or whether we should skip college altogether. When we have to choose between two equally good things, reading the Bible won’t tell us which is the right choice. So how do we discern God’s will in these situations?
This is an area where it’s easy for us to get into trouble. In Scripture, we see God sometimes leading His people in a supernatural way. When they were wandering in the desert, He led the people of Israel with a pillar of cloud and fire; we see Him speaking to the prophets through dreams and visions or speaking in an audible voice. It’s easy to start thinking that if we are really spiritual, God will lead us in this way as well. The problem is that this sort of leading is the exception, rather than the rule. This is not only true for us; this sort of guidance was exceptional in Biblical times as well. When Israel crossed over into the Promised Land, they were no longer led by the pillar of cloud and fire. The prophets had to make most of their daily decisions without the benefit of special revelations. Even for the apostles, the more direct forms of guidance seem to have been given at important turning points in their ministries. God has created us with the ability to think, to exercise wisdom, to make rational choices, to seek advice from others, and He normally leads us in ways that are consistent with these things. He normally calls us to make decisions without the benefit of miraculous guidance.
Many have gotten into difficulties by trusting too much in inward impressions. They have assumed that guidance is “essentially inward prompting by the Holy Spirit, apart from the written Word,” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 212). The history of the church is littered with illustrations of what happens when we put too much confidence in these sorts of impressions. J.I. Packer tells of one woman who would begin her day by consecrating it to God, and then would not stir out of bed until prompted to do so by the Holy Spirit. As she dressed herself, she would pray over each article of clothing, asking the Lord whether she should put it on or not. As a result, often she would leave the house with only one shoe, or with stockings but no shoes, and so on (pp. 213-14). From our vantage point, this is clearly ridiculous, even comical, but it’s important to realize that she went wrong by seeking a level of guidance that God does not choose to give. How do people get caught in this sort of thing? I think it usually begins with a genuine desire to know God, but we get sidetracked. We start demanding that God act according to our expectations, and we slip into a subtle form of idolatry. If we insist on having something that God doesn’t choose to give us, we are setting ourselves up to accept a counterfeit.
Not all the examples are as ridiculous as this. George Whitefield was a friend of John Wesley, an exceptionally powerful preacher and one of the greatest evangelists of all time. He was a godly man, with a deep personal relationship with God. He was well-educated and knowledgeable in the Scriptures. He was also humble and aware of his own weaknesses. Early in his ministry, he put a lot of confidence in inward impressions, which he thought were from the direct prompting of the Holy Spirit. This emphasis was prominent in his published journals, and other ministers even warned him about it. When Whitefield’s wife gave birth to a son, he publicly announced his impression that this son would grow up “to be a preacher of the everlasting Gospel.” He wrote: “...in the company of thousands I solemnly gave him up to God.... and all went away big with hopes of the child’s being hereafter to be employed in the work of God....” A few months later, the child died, and Whitefield wrote: “...though disappointed of a living preacher by the death of my son, yet I hope what happened..., hath taught me such lessons, as, if duly improved, may render his mistaken parent more cautious, more sober-minded... and consequently more useful in his future labours to the church of God.” From this time on he was much more cautious in this area (Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield, vol. 2, pp. 166-69). This calls us to humility; if George Whitefield could be misled in this way, it is the height of presumption to think we are immune.
So, how does God normally lead us? If He doesn’t lead us primarily by inward impressions, how do we go about discerning God’s will. We discern God’s will primarily by applying the wisdom He teaches us in His word, this wisdom that is “written down so we’ll know how to live well and right, to understand what life means and where it’s going” (Proverbs 1). We discern God’s will as creatures who’ve been entrusted with the gift of understanding. Here are 6 general principles that I’ve found helpful.[1]
1) We need to be willing to think. J.I. Packer says: “It is false piety, super-supernaturalism of an unhealthy and pernicious sort, that demands inward impressions that have no rational base, and declines to heed the constant biblical summons to `consider’.” The Bible addresses us as rational beings and urges us to think. “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isa. 1:18). In Romans 6 and 7, Paul repeatedly asks, “Do you not know?” In Romans 11:25, he says “I do not want you to be ignorant of this....” God doesn’t bypass our minds in His dealings with us. Look at Psalm 32:8-9: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.” The thing he notes about these animals is that they have no understanding. They need to be specifically led each step of the way. They need to be controlled. God doesn’t deal with us in this way. He has created us with minds, and He calls us to use them. If we, in the name of spirituality, refuse to do so, we are headed for disaster. If we want to know God’s will, we need to be willing to think about the choice that is before us.
2) We must be willing to think ahead, and consider the long-term consequences of our choices. Deut. 32:28-29 says: “They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them. If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!” Jesus said “Do not worry about tomorrow” (Matthew 6:34). He didn’t say “Don’t think about the future.” It is wise to ask how this decision will fit into our long-term plans. Is it taking us in the direction we want our lives to go? Will this choice we’re considering hinder us from following the Lord in the future? Is it consistent with His calling in our lives?
3) We must be willing to take advice. When Paul says in Galatians 1:16, “I did not consult any man,” he is not disparaging the idea of taking advice. He’s talking there about his call to be a Christian and an apostle. Look at Proverbs 12:15: “The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.” Or 13:10: “Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.” Unwillingness to take advice is a mark of pride, not spirituality. Even if we, in the end, are unable to take the advice we receive, involving others is an important part of the process. The act of sifting through the suggestions you receive will often help clarify the issues. Annie and I have a number of people we go to when we are in the process of making a decision, and frequently they are able to see things that we have missed. We are part of a body, and God often uses other members of the body to help us discern His will.
One caution in this area: if we are not careful, we will tend to gravitate toward those who are likely to tell us what we want to hear. In 1Kings 12, Solomon has just died and his son, Rehoboam, has become king. The people come to him with this request: “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you” (v. 4). Rehoboam asks them to come back in three days, and goes to the elders, those with more experience, for advice. They urge him to give in to the people: “They replied, `If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants’” (v. 7). But he’s just become king, and he wants to throw his weight around a little. Who do these people think they are, anyway? He’s king, and he wants them to feel the weight of his power. So he rejects the advice of the elders and turns to his friends for counsel. They tell him what he is wanting to hear: “Tell these people who have said to you, `Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter’ -- tell them, `My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions’” (vv. 10-11). This is the beginning of the divided kingdom; the ten tribes to the north rebel against Rehoboam, and he barely escapes with his life. When we go to others for advice, we need to be careful that what we’re seeking is God’s will, and not just an affirmation of what we’ve already decided to do. Our hearts are deceitful and will lead us astray. This leads to the next point.
4) We need to be suspicious of ourselves. Merely feeling that something is God’s will is not enough. We need to ask ourselves why we feel this to be God’s will. Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Rather than being anxious to trust in feelings and impressions, we should be skeptical of them, knowing the deceitfulness of our own hearts. At times our feelings reflect nothing more than the influence of a good night’s sleep or an enjoyable meal. J.I. Packer says, and I believe he’s right: “We can never distrust ourselves too much.”
5) We need to beware of putting too much confidence in the wrong people. We should not only distrust ourselves, we should also have a healthy skepticism about following others. Those who get caught up in false cults have, at some point, begun following their leaders blindly. They refuse to recognize their responsibility to “test all things,” even in the context of religious leadership. We seek advice from others, but we don’t follow them blindly.
6) We must be willing to wait. “God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not His way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 217). Many of you are probably familiar with Oswald Chambers’ daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. In one of the readings, he says this: “Never run before God’s guidance. If there is the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt--don’t” (January 4th reading). A large part of knowing God’s will is waiting on His time.
So, to put all this together, when we are in the process of making a decision the wisest course is to wait on God, to cry out to Him for direction, and begin actively seeking His will. Think prayerfully about the pros and cons of the alternatives, weigh the long-term consequences, and go to some mature Christians to get their perspective. Be willing to wait on the Lord’s time, for He may not lead as quickly as you think He should. But, as you wait on Him, you will begin to get a sense of where He is leading.
As you prayerfully wait on the Lord, look for two things: an increasing weight in favor of one of the alternatives; and an increasing conviction in your heart that this is the Lord’s direction. Feelings and convictions are not to be ignored; they just need to be weighed together with these other things. When Annie and I get to this point in a decision, we usually begin making tentative steps in that direction, and as we begin stepping out, we pray for the Lord to either confirm this as His will, or to make it clear that we are on the wrong track. As we have followed this course of seeking His will, He has always been faithful and has made it abundantly clear what He wants us to do. He has often made us wait much longer than we’ve wanted to wait, but He has never failed to make His will known in the end.
But there still remains the question about those times when God leads His people in more direct ways. Does He still do this today? I believe He does, but we need to realize that this is the exception rather than the norm. It was exceptional, as I said earlier, even for the apostles and prophets. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the great Welsh preacher, preached a series of sermons on Spiritual Depression, and he shared later that the Lord had led him to this series in an exceptional way. He described it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, where the Lord met with him powerfully and impressed upon him the whole series, including the order in which the sermons were to be preached. These sermons are available still in the book Spiritual Depression. There seems to be an increase in this sort of guidance during times of revival, but there is also an increase in the counterfeits at the same time. I have four suggestions in this area, but I want to stress that, even in this more direct type of guidance, God deals with us as creatures who can understand and respond (either in obedience or disobedience) to His will.
1) Because guidance by dreams, visions, an audible voice or a strong impression on the mind is not the norm, we should not expect to be guided in these ways. There are times when God, in His sovereign wisdom, grants such things to His people, but the giving of these things is under His control. We cannot produce such things by the exercise of faith, and we certainly cannot claim them. God often does such things for a specific purpose and for a limited period of time. One of the leaders of the Welsh revival, about 150 years ago, was a man named David Morgan. By all accounts he was a quite ordinary preacher; he was a good man, but his gifts were not exceptional in any way. But he began longing for revival, and something happened. He reports: “I went to bed [one] night just David Morgan as usual. I woke up the next morning feeling like a lion, feeling that I was filled with the power of the Holy Ghost.” For the next two years, he preached with exceptional power, and large numbers of people came to Christ. Everywhere he went, there were tremendous results. About two years later, he says, “I went to bed one night still feeling like a lion, filled with this strange power that I had enjoyed for the two years. I woke up the next morning and found that I had become David Morgan once more.” He lived for another 15 years and again exercised a very ordinary ministry (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, pp. 322-323). God, in His sovereign wisdom, did something exceptional for a limited period of time; but when that time was over, He withdrew the power. It’s the same with these more extraordinary types of guidance. God may work in this way for a limited period of time. He may even grant a person one experience of this type, and then never do it again. The timing and duration of these things is not within our power.
2) Being led in these ways is not a mark of spirituality. God sometimes does exceptional things in the lives of immature Christians, to assure them of His presence in their lives. When I was a new Christian, I felt strongly burdened to witness to a friend of mine. It was late in the evening, probably 10pm or so, and I was sure he would be out at one of the local bars, so I went looking for him. He wasn’t in any of the places I looked, and when I was about to give up, the Lord spoke to me very clearly and said: “Wait here, and I’ll bring him to you.” I pulled over, and within a minute or so, he drove by, and I was able to wave him over. He didn’t become a Christian, but I was able to witness to him, and I was also assured of the reality of God’s presence in my life. But it had nothing to do with my spirituality at the time. I was a brand new Christian and had hardly begun to grow spiritually. It was a gift of grace, given for my encouragement in the faith. A friend of mine, who was away from the Lord, was laying in his bed one night, and a voice came through his bedroom window: “Jack, you’d better straighten up your life.” This so arrested and convicted him that he recommitted his life to Christ. In the Muslim world, where there is such strong opposition to the Gospel, God often uses dreams to bring people to Himself. So, if the Lord speaks to you or leads you in a more direct way, don’t assume that it is because you are more spiritual than others. It may be just the opposite. It may be that He can’t get your attention in any other way, or it may be that the Lord is establishing a strong foundation so that you will be able to mature and that He will withdraw these things when He’s accomplished His purpose.
3) When God spoke directly to His people in Scripture, they knew beyond a doubt that it was Him. He is God, and He is able to make Himself known to us in ways that exclude the possibility of doubt. The apostles at Pentecost knew with a certainty beyond explanation that God was present in their midst. Ezekiel, when he saw heaven opened, knew that he was in the presence of God. God is able to speak clearly to us. So, if you have an impression on your mind, don’t bother asking whether it’s from God. If you don’t know, you can be confident that God is not speaking to you. God calls us to respond to Him in faith, and we can’t exercise faith in something that may or may not be from God. If you’re not sure, don’t act. When God speaks, He speaks clearly enough for us to know that He is speaking. To quote Oswald Chambers again: “Never run before God’s guidance. If there is the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt--don’t”
4) These things need to be tested, in the same way that other aspects of revival need to be tested. God’s Word exhorts us to “test the spirits.” If you are being led in a miraculous way, ask yourself how this experience is affecting your relationship with God. How is it affecting your relationship with Christians who are not having similar experiences? Is Jesus Christ being exalted by this experience, and are you being humbled by it, or are you being puffed up with pride? Is your reverence toward Scripture growing through this experience? Be brutally honest with yourself. Remember that “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 12:14). Those who get caught in his traps don’t get caught because they’re stupid. They get caught because he presents an attractive-looking bait. If we are concerned with spiritual things, he will deceive us with something that seems very spiritual. So many have been led astray in this area that it is unwise and presumptuous to not test the spirits.
The most important thing, the really essential thing, in this area of guidance is that we desire to do God’s will above our own, that we desire with all our hearts to please Him, that we are willing to lay aside our own desires in order to please Him. Listen to Psalm 73:23-26. The psalmist has been in difficulty, but the Lord has brought him to a place of renewed faith, and he concludes: “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” He looked back and saw that God had been with him during a time of darkness and rebellion; God had faithfully led him out of his own doubts. Our hope is in God, our confidence is in Him, and if you can say with the Psalmist, “God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever,” you can also be confident that He will guide you with His counsel and afterward take you into glory. There will be times when you will flounder, and wonder where God is and why He’s taking so long to reveal His will. But when He receives you into His eternal kingdom, you will be able to look back and see that He led you faithfully all the way. In the words of the hymn “All the Way my Savior Leads Me”: “When my spirit, clothed immortal, wings its flight to realms of day, this my song through endless ages, Jesus led my all the way.”
[1]These guidelines have been adapted from “Thou Our Guide,” by J.I. Packer, in his book Knowing God.
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